Founded in 1947 by entrepreneur Norman Polsky, Fixtures Furniture began as a coat rack company. Success led to an expansion into counter stools, then tables and chairs, establishing Fixtures as an innovator of commercial furniture with advanced design. Fixtures has a long-standing reputation for durable products targeted toward institutional customers: healthcare, education, government and corporate. In the mid 1990s, Mr. Polsky sold his interests in the business to Jami, Inc., a company founded in 1995 to acquire and develop companies in the contract furniture industry. In 2008, Fixtures Furniture became part of izzy+, a Michigan-based business owned by JSJ Corporation. Today, Fixtures Furniture products are manufactured and shipped from facilities in Alabama and Indiana and sold through a network of independent sales representatives.

Ron Kemnitzer

Ron Kemnitzer is chair of the Industrial Design program at Virginia Tech and currently serves as president of the Industrial Designers Society of America. He holds more than 15 U.S. international patents for his work, which also has been recognized in many design competitions. In 1988, he designed the Bola chair, which earned an IBD Gold Award. Other awards in his career include the Gold Good Design Award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and a Bronze Award in the 1992 Industrial Design Excellence Awards sponsored by Business Week magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America. An independent product design consultant for many years, Kemnitzer is also the founder of Kem Studio in Kansas City, Missouri, that is now owned and operated by his son Jonathon.